In conventional apparatus used for manufacture of screen printing plates, a photosensitive emulsion layer of a given thickness has been formed onto the mesh screen of the screen printing plate.
It is known that an apparatus includes a bucket in which an emulsion is reserved and which is movable in the upward and downward direction along the mesh screen while it is maintained in an inclined state so that the emulsion is directly applied onto the mesh screen An apparatus for automatically performing such an operation of the bucket is disclosed in Japanese laid-open patent publications Nos. 60-48044 and 60-188948 filed by the present applicant.
In addition, Japanese laid-open patent publications Nos. 60-188949 and 61-113063 filed by the same applicant have disclosed apparatus for forming an emulsion layer onto a mesh screen of a screen printing plate by utilizing the emulsion film which has an emulsion layer of a given thickness and is attached to the mesh screen of the screen printing plate in order to produce the emulsion layer of the given thickness thereon. Further, Japanese laid-open utility model publication No. 1-81654 has also disclosed an emulsion layer forming apparatus in which the emulsion film is attached to the mesh screen. These conventional apparatus include the bucket which is movable while being kept in contact with the mesh screen so that the emulsion layer of the emulsion film is wetted by a liquid emulsion flown out of the bucket disposed on a rear side of the mesh screen and passed therethrough to a front side of the mesh screen. In these apparatus, the emulsion layer of an extremely exact thickness is appropriately formed on the screen printing plate since the emulsion film having an emulsion layer of a given thickness is used.
However, despite of many common components, the apparatus used for applying liquid emulsion has hitherto been manufactured separately from those used for attaching an emulsion layer-containing film. Namely, there has not existed the single apparatus which is capable of being utilized both for applying liquid emulsion and for attaching the emulsion layer-containing film on the mesh screen of the screen printing plate.
Therefore, it has been required to individually install both devices in order to apply directly the emulsion and attach the emulsion film. In this case, there are deficiencies that a sufficient area for installing the apparatus is necessary and costs of installation thereof are increased.